


His Name and His Face

by RosemarysBabysitter (TashaElizabeth)



Series: Goretober Prompts [10]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Barbarian King Hunter, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TashaElizabeth/pseuds/RosemarysBabysitter
Summary: The King of King's has ways of getting the truth. Goretober Prompt: Torture





	His Name and His Face

The King of Kings does not take loyalty lightly. He has places for testing loyalty, deep down in the lower levels of his castle. He has methods. He has an iron rack with chains at the four corners. He can bind a person there by their wrists and ankles and if they’re lucky, he’ll do it with their feet on the ground. He can put them in a chair, banded still with their hands fixed to a table. He has tools. There are certain kinds of canes. There are boards and bricks at his disposal. He has whips and belts and buckles. He has cages and tacks.

He has the hammer.

He’s not sadistic. There have been such rulers, but the King of Kings is not this way. These things have to be done. For protection. For principle. For prosperity. Sometimes people have to be hurt. Sometimes they have to bleed and burn so that he knows their words are truth. There are lots of ways to break a man. It’s better that he does these things himself. He takes responsibility for them.  
-  
He looks into the eyes of an old friend and brings the hammer down on his outstretched fingers.

“Pledge me your fealty.” 

Michaels spits at his feet, grins a bloody smile.

“Let me protect you,” the King of King says. When he was younger he looked up to this man. He got into mischief with him, picked fights, made merry. That should be enough to save him. But Michaels is popular among the people. He has power. Too much power.  
-  
The pretty Orton brat could gain that sort of power. Instead the King of King tames him, his pet serpent. The Viper was very young when he was first taken into the King’s employ. He is the noble son of a once powerful earl. He has many sessions with the King of Kings, until the voices he hears are swayed to the King’s point of view. Not all of these were in the lower dungeons, not all of them were about the rack and the whip. Not all them have the Viper acting as observer. The boy was already broken. It can’t be so great a crime to bend him further. He can at times be very useful in convincing certain rebellious factions to stay in line.  
-  
Still others must be dealt with by him alone. That is his duty as King. The band of vagrants who seek to disrupt his festival require his personal attention. Daniel, their brash, bearded leader, is thrown at the King’s feet and the King of King takes delight in kicking him until he hears bones crack.“Your stupid little rebellion will fail,” he says flatly.

“No,” Daniel says. “It won’t.” Daniel tries to laugh despite his broken ribs. “The people are behind me. They’ll make sure I win.”

The King of King shakes his head. “But it won’t matter. You’ll win and in a few weeks everything will go back to as it was.”

“But I’ll still win.”

In a few years he has his brother-in-law buy the man’s allegiance. Shane hires him to run the training of his own men. Daniel does not consider this in the King’s reach. The King of King’s knows better.  
-  
When armored vigilantes hide in the village, springing out to cause trouble, pick fights, administer justice outside their authority, the King of King’s knows exactly how to deal with them. The weak link is found before he even puts leather to the man’s skin.

“One of you will break,” the King of Kings tells him. “Eventually one of you will break. Let it be you. Spare yourself the pain and when the times comes to betray them I will make you a prince.”

He’s had this conversation twice before, catching each of theses rebels in succession. The first one, a wayward highborn second son mumbled unfunny jokes and garbled threats to himself until his lordly father ransomed his freedom. The other, a scapegrace street urchin, swore violently and then dislocated his own shoulder to escape his cell.

This one has doubt in his eyes. He uses that. Weedles from the man his name. Seth.

He waits until the perfect time for Seth to turn.  
-  
There is a Queen, of course.

He stole a princess to make her the Queen. He drugged her wine and in disguise kidnapped her from her father’s castles. He married her on horseback in the next county over. It was very easy. He married her, note, for she was still sleeping from his drug. There is a painting of it in the great hall. In the painting she is limp against his chest while the priests raises his hand in blessing. She is not, as she was in life, slung over the front of the saddle like a sack of potatoes. She has feasted below that painting for over a decade.

She is sweet to him now. He left no scars and thus was easier to forgive. They say she had a hand in it from the beginning. Maybe it's true. She has her hands in it now. What power he took from her by matrimonial scheming is now his by her generosity. She is by his side at every battle. He loves her now. They have children, all daughters. She loves him.

-

He goes into the dungeons and finds a traitor to beat with gauntlets on until his body is tired enough to sleep. He spills blood like a drunk spills beer. He brings the hammer to knees, to teeth, to bowed spines.

He thinks they’re his daughters. He thinks she loves him. The hammer is no help there.


End file.
